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The Sad, Dark End of the British Empire

Today even this already reduced British role in world affairs is threatened by the coming referendum in Scotland, regardless of its outcome. Michael Sexton, writing in the Australian newspaper, said “the fact the referendum is being held at all underlines the decline of English culture and confidence across the past half century.” If Scotland votes to break away from England, that decline will become even more pronounced. As Britain’s influence declines, its veto in the United Nations Security Council, for instance, might be open to question, as would that of France, which has also lost most of its empire. As they have before, nations bigger and stronger than Britain or France—Japan, India, Brazil, South Africa—will ask why the U.K. should continue to have veto authority alongside powerhouses like China, Russia and the United States? (The answer—nuclear weapons—can’t hold off rising powers indefinitely.)

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The Scottish referendum is also having ripple effects on separatist struggles elsewhere, especially in Asia. It is under scrutiny in Taiwan, the self-governing island that is claimed by China but constantly flirting with independence. The government in Taipei has opened a representative office in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. In China, the Uighur minority in the western province of Xinjiang has been struggling for autonomy or independence. To draw attention to that battle, the Uighur American Association recently declared that the “Scots aren’t the only ones considering independence.” In Japan, activists are seeking to drive the United States from its big military bases on Okinawa. “Scotland can be our potential model and we are paying attention to it,” Masaki Tomochi, an Okinawan scholar, recently told the Diplomat online magazine. The experience of the Scots is also being noted by separatists in Europe, where Basques seek to break out of Spain; in North America, where French speakers in Quebec would like to secede from Canada; and in the Middle East, where the Kurds have tried to carve out a homeland from Turkey, Iraq and Iran. An Australian scholar, Iain Stewart, has suggested that Australians who want their nation to break its last commonwealth ties with the U.K. and become a republic “should watch the Scots.”

As anyone who has seen the (admittedly fictional and historically inaccurate) movie Braveheart knows, the Scottish yearning for independence goes back many centuries. Even when the British empire was at its most dominant, Scottish nationalists forged ahead, according to a timeline published by the Scotsman. The Scots National League was formed in London in 1921 and was influenced by moves toward independence in Ireland, next door; Dublin threw off British rule in 1922. When the league became the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1934, the first objective was home rule, then independence. After World War II, the Scots persuaded British conservatives in 1968 to support devolution, in which much control over domestic affairs would pass to the Scots. A referendum in 1979 saw 52 percent of the voters favor devolution, but that result was overturned by a technicality. Finally, in a 1997 referendum, 74 percent of the voters opted for devolution; an elected Scottish national parliament opened the next year. The SNP drew up a manifesto in 2007 that called for the forthcoming referendum on independence.

If the Scots approve independence on Sept. 18, that will only be the beginning of a negotiated withdrawal from the U.K. that could take years to execute. Among the issues to be negotiated, according to the Economist, will be Scotland’s membership in the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Scots must set up a diplomatic corps and open dozens of embassies and, with the English, divide Britain’s armed forces—including its nuclear submarines, based in Faslane. In finance, the Scots and English must agree on dividing Britain’s national debt. Scotland must decide on its currency as the English have said they will not permit Scotland to use the pound sterling. Dividing access to North Sea oil, a lucrative asset, will surely be contentious. Marking off the boundaries of fishing waters will be difficult.

Then there are issues like continuing to have an open border between England and Scotland, dividing the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), setting an international telephone dialing code for Scotland and adopting an internet domain. There is even the question of whether Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands will still be available as the Royal Family’s vacation retreat. (The castle’s website suggests that it is being overrun by tourists at certain times of the year.)

Fortunately, one issue appears to have been settled and that is the fate of the Stone of Scone, the symbol of Scotland’s sovereignty. Historically, it was present when the kings of Scotland were crowned. But it was seized by English invaders in 1296 and placed under a chair on which English kings sat in Westminster Abbey. The stone was stolen by Scottish nationalists on Christmas 1950 but was recovered and returned to Westminster Abbey four months later. The British government sent it back to Scotland in 1996. Until then, to ask a Scot about the Stone of Scone was to open a torrent of four-letter Anglo-Saxon judgments about English ancestry and legitimacy.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that Sir Walter Scott translated a telling passage about the symbol from an ancient Scottish prophecy:

Where’er is found this sacred stone

The Scottish race should reign.

Richard Halloran is a freelance writer in Honolulu. Formerly with the New York Times as a foreign correspondent in Asia and military correspondent in Washington, he is the author of a brief biography: My Name Is Shinseki … and I Am a Soldier.